


torn seams

by theprimrosepath



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Caleb Widogast Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt Caleb Widogast, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast Friendship, Near Future, POV Caleb Widogast, Self-Harm, Whump, can be taken as pre-relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprimrosepath/pseuds/theprimrosepath
Summary: The shock of someone grabbing his wrists rushed through him like a lightning bolt.Caleb shuddered, chest heaving with shallow pants. From what he could see through his unfocused gaze, the hands holding his still were spattered with drying blood and blue-skinned. He blinked rapidly and rasped, "Jester?""Hi, Caleb," she whispered. "Can you stop, please?"Caleb kills a Scourger, but he isn't prepared to see refined residuum in the ashes.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 21
Kudos: 350





	torn seams

**Author's Note:**

> i've turned into a huge fan of caleb and jester's dynamic (especially the unbearable one-sided pining happening over there with the former LOL). at the same time i didn't see much addressing caleb's self-harm behaviors in my skim of a few pages of the tag, so i ended up writing it myself. i'm only caught up to episode 96, so anything in this fic was based on that knowledge (although it takes place sometime in the future). enjoy :)

The shock of someone grabbing his wrists rushed through him like a lightning bolt.

Caleb shuddered, chest heaving with shallow pants. From what he could see through his unfocused gaze, the hands holding his still were spattered with drying blood and blue-skinned. He blinked rapidly and rasped, "Jester?"

"Hi, Caleb," she whispered. "Can you stop, please?"

His hands shook in her grasp. He wanted to tear them out of hers. All of him was shaking and he couldn't stop. "What..."

"We're at an inn," Jester said, with the same odd, trembling-soft voice. Caleb's stomach twisted ever harder at the anxiety in it. "We were fighting, there was a Scourger, and you killed them. They burned up. And there was, um, there were those crystals."

Glints of blue-green had shimmered from the last vestiges of firelight in the human ash, and if Caleb had been teetering on the edge of panic from the death, the sight of residuum where the Volstrucker's arms had crumbled apart kicked him into oblivion.

His arms burned. His throat felt scratched raw as if he had been screaming. He twisted at Jester's hold, but he was weak and trembling in the throes of his fit and her grip was firm.

"Let go, please," he whispered. "I need you to let go."

"But your arms, Caleb." Her tone was mournful.

Caleb shivered. More of the feeling had returned to his limbs, the burning under his skin and the sweat beading cold all over him. He needed to move, he needed to run, he _needed—_ "Please, Jester."

"No."

His jaw ground on itself. There was a minute voice, saner and self-aware, that spat at him for being so weak, and for horrifying Jester in his desperation, but he couldn't do this. His arms were bloody, and his body didn't scream _enough_.

"Jester," he groaned, tugging against her grip again.

"You're not hurting yourself anymore," Jester said firmly. She squeezed his wrists, and the pressure so near his wounds lessened the straining inside for the briefest second. "Caduceus made me a salve, since we're all out of healing spells. I need to put it on your arms, okay?"

Caleb shook his head. More hair slipped from its tie to obscure his eyes, and he wanted to rip it all out.

Jester put one of his hands over the other and wrapped them tightly in one of her own—around his fingers, long and thin so her much smaller hand could securely trap them both. He could see the bright red blood coating his fingertips now and clotted beneath his nails, much fresher than the crusting stains on Jester's hands. Her grip tightened enough for her knuckles to pale, and the creak of his own knuckles beneath it almost eased some of the screaming hateful urge.

"Stay still, please," she said, and Caleb finally noticed the open tin of salve on the floor as she dipped her free hand into it.

His jaw continued to grind and clench as the salve stung deep on his arms. This pain cooled the heat inside him, warmed the sweat on his skin, but now the ache shifted to his face. Caleb could feel the ash of the Volstrucker smeared across his cheekbone.

"Jester," he croaked.

Jester resolutely continued to apply the salve over his arms. His eyes had now focused enough to let him see how ugly the wounds were, how deeply he had clawed at his scars in his fit.

"Jester."

"Shush."

Caleb tugged at Jester's grip, stronger now. Jester's fingers skipped over his arms and caught on a bloody gouge, and she yelped in shock. Caleb hissed at the searing flash of pain, mostly on instinct.

"Caleb!"

"I need my components bag," he insisted. Its weight was absent from his waist. "Where is it."

"Why?"

" _I need it._ "

Jester brandished more salve at him. "Why?"

"Just—give it to me, Jester, where is it?"

"Why, so you can smear bat shit on your face?" she snapped.

Caleb hissed again, knowing that this time he sounded like an angry Frumpkin and hating himself for it, for the burn of frustration and shame welling inside his chest.

She glared. Caleb's heart wrenched at the unexpected wetness to her eyes.

She swiped her fingers on his face.

Caleb recoiled, blinking an eye shut. The salve was now haphazardly clinging in clumps from an eyelid down to the cheek on the other side of his face. He watched with his unobstructed eye as Jester's careful hands smoothed the globs of salve over more of his face. The sticky substance began to dry almost immediately, uncomfortable and tightening on his skin.

"There." Jester's voice was soft and bitter. "So at least it's not bat shit."

The condemnation tore into his chest like wet paper, and tears sprung to Caleb's eyes. Exhaustion was overtaking the squirming energy broiling beneath his skin, now that wounds and salve burned on his arms and the latter dried uncomfortably on his face. But it couldn't sweep away his shame.

He looked away as he felt her touch return to his arms, squeezing his eyes shut.

Caleb's limbs rested easier, his chest no longer heaving. But the stiff, raging tension in them had simply fled out to suffuse the silence around them.

He never opened his mouth or shifted a muscle. It was Jester as she started on his other arm.

"You scared us," she said. The quiet quaver had returned. "You scared _me_."

Caleb swallowed thickly. "I... I'm sorry, Jester."

"I didn't like it. Seeing you hurt yourself like that, with your eyes all gone. It was terrifying." She squeezed his fingers, the gesture tender this time. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"...You would be right to."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his gaze. Jester had her lips pressed together, staring down at his arm as she applied Caduceus's salve to the last of his self-inflicted gouges. There was indeed a paleness to her face, an artificial gauntness of strain and fear. Caleb's stomach twisted, and he went back to looking away at the floor.

The grip on his fingers loosened, even as there was another squeeze. "I'm sorry, Caleb," came Jester's soft voice.

Caleb exhaled through his nose. "Why are you sorry? _I_ terrified _you_."

"Because it wasn't your fault, but you have to deal with it all now anyway. What Icky-Thong did to you."

It shouldn't have been that easy or appropriate to feel a smile stir on his lips, but it was Jester. Of course it did. "It's all right, Jester."

" _No_ , it's not."

Caleb shrugged a shoulder. "I have to deal with it," he repeated. "Perhaps it is not my fault, but it is a reality I am used to now. I am only sorry that you had to see it."

He looked at her and winced; the tears had returned to her eyes. Why was he always hurting her?

She snuffled.

"Don't cry, Jester," Caleb said helplessly.

Without warning, she flung her arms around him. He stiffened immediately, salve-covered arms hanging uselessly at his sides as Jester buried her face into his shoulder. Her hug wrapped around his chest like Frumpkin as an octopus.

"I'm not," she said muffled into his shirt. "See, you can't see it. Please don't hurt yourself, Caleb."

Caleb swallowed at the lump in his throat and raised an arm to squeeze her gingerly back, careful not to stain any part of Jester with the fresh blood on his fingers. "I will try my best. Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [@primrose-path-of-dalliance](https://primrose-path-of-dalliance.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where i post fandom things and the occasional bit of writing.


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